Seeking Justice (6 page)

Was that a sign, she wondered? Should she accept Zander's proposal, marry him, and move to Bluefield? It would make her a part of the McMillian family. She would wake up next
to Zander each morning. She could be with people who were happy to see her every day, people who cared about her.

Her stomach churned a little, and she thought it could be one of three things: hunger, nerves about doing the wrong thing, or a signal that she was thinking in the right direction.

The only thing she had to do was figure out which was which.

"Justice, you coming,
darlin'?" At some point while she'd been thinking, Zander had moved to the door. Ben was already inside.

Zander held out his hand and Justice took it. She needed to find the answer to her question. But, she wasn't exactly sure how to figure things out, and know she was doing the right thing.

"I can't believe all this…
stuff
!" Justice stared at the boxes lined up on tables in Miss Agatha's basement. The walls were covered with newspaper clippings and photos of different pieces of land near Bluefield.

"I never knew this was here," Emily said. They had enjoyed breakfast at the big house and then Zander had gone to help Leroy Butler with the intake of his mare. The horse would spend the next two weeks at the ranch while they introduced her to Matchstick, and let the two of them do their thing.

Now, Justice and Emily stood there looking at the massive quantities of information. For her part, Justice wasn't sure where to start. After breakfast, Emily had called a babysitter for the twins so she could come to the house and help Justice get started on her quest. Zander's parents had gone into town to see Miss Agatha while the men were at the stables.

"I don't know what—" Justice threw up her hands and exhaled a huge puff of air. "I had no clue that this story generated this amount of paper."

The room wasn't very big, true, about the size of a walk-in closet. But still….

"I wonder if she has this alphabetized," Justice said. "And the only way we're going to find out is to start opening boxes and see what's what."

They decided to start at separate sides of the room. It didn't take them long to figure out that the boxes didn't contain that many pieces of paper. They were separated into years, with stories from the early nineteen hundreds. Those papers had been encased in plastic, and the stories had been copied so they could be read.

Justice was surprised to find birth and death certificates and marriage licenses. It didn't take her long to realize in each case that the persons listed were named Smith, Thompson, Barton, Miter, and Ward.

"I can't believe she's tracked down all this information," Justice said. "Some of these birth records come from San Antonio, and Austin, and as far away as Amarillo. She really did her research."

After going through the first box, Justice realized Miss Agatha had treated this much like a genealogy search. She'd written to the people she could find, asking them if they had family
stories about their ancestors being part of the bandits that had raided this area in the eighteen hundreds.

Miss Agatha had made copies of each letter she had sent out, and she attached the answers to each letter. Most of the missives, Justice noticed, went unanswered. Those that were answered had negative words, saying they had never heard of the men Miss Agatha had mentioned.

"It looks like she hit a dead end at every turn," Emily said. "That alone would keep her searching. You know Miss Agatha, she's got a stubborn streak a mile long."

Justice laughed. "It's one trait she passed on to her grandchildren."

Instead of playing innocent or disagreeing with her, Emily laughed. "It does seem to run in the family. Speaking of family… did you and my brother enjoy yourselves last night?"

"We certainly did," Justice said. She took a seat in one of the two chairs in the room. "Does that bother you? If it does, you've never mentioned it before."

"It doesn't bother me at all," Emily said as she sat down in the free chair. "I think the two of you would produce beautiful babies."

Justice laughed. "Don't put the cart before the horse. The only thing we need to worry about right now is trying to get to the bottom of a one-hundred and fifty year mystery."

"Fat chance of that happening," Emily said. "Poor grandma, she's going to be so disappointed."

Justice rattled a piece of paper. "Don't give up yet. For all we know, Miss Agatha has found the answer already and she just didn't realize it. I intend to read all this info, and see what I can figure out."

Emily shook her head. "There are thousands of pieces of paper here."

"Then I better get started." Justice stood, the realization of what she'd just said settling in. There were indeed thousands of pieces of paper here, and it would take her forever to get through them.

"Care to help?" Justice said just as Emily's text alert beeped. Her friend looked at the number and frowned.

"I guess I need to get up to the house. They are releasing grandma today, and mom wants me to help settle her in to her bedroom. I know she wants to come here, but the doctor insisted that she stay at the big house."

"It's is a good idea," Justice sighed. "I'm going to go upstairs and get a bottle of water, and then I'm going to text Zander. I'll let him know what I'll be up to while he's working. Shall we plan dinner tonight?"

"Definitely," Emily said. "We'll have it up at the house, around six. Come hungry."

"I never turn down food."

When Emily was gone, Justice went to her car and retrieved her suitcase. After careful consideration, she selected one of the spare bedrooms. It had a queen-sized bed and a sliding glass door that led to the wrap around porch. It wasn't hard to imagine her and Zander having sex on the porch tonight. She hadn't known what she would be doing, so she hadn't packed any grungy clothes.

The basement was hot, with not much ventilation. She thought about bringing the boxes upstairs, but that would take too long. What she needed was an old t-shirt she could cut the arms off and shorten the length, so that it would be cooler to wear. She called Zander, hoping he would have just such a thing. When she got his voicemail, she left a message telling him what she wanted.

Figuring she was stuck with the clothes she wore, Justice snagged a bottle of water from the fridge and headed back downstairs. Starting on the left of every page worked for reading and writing, so she decided that was exactly what she would do to analyze all the data. Before she began, she found a pen and some blank pieces of paper.

The first few boxes were minimal, mostly Justice supposed, because of their time period. She had no doubt Miss Agatha had been to the libraries to make the photocopies of the newspaper articles. Justice read them quickly, but she found no new information other than what Zander had told her the other evening. By the time she got to the box with the seventies information, she realized the newspaper articles contained the same information. The only thing that changed was the dates, and events, for Bandit Days. It had grown over the years, in both popularity and size.

It was in the nineties that Miss Agatha had started researching people she thought might be descendants of the bandits. Justice figured the older woman made the decision to start the search because she thought the people might have more information about what happened, stories that had been handed down through the generations.

"But why would they tell you, Miss Agatha?" Justice said out loud. After all, if the people thought there was money to be made, they would keep the information to themselves and come down here to search for the loot.

Justice sat back and stared at the boxes. She had made very few notes while reading and she knew that helping Miss Agatha complete her quest was not going to be easy. It was going to take a while. Thinking about the meager amount of clothing she'd brought, and the fact that she hadn't really closed up her apartment in Dallas, she knew she was going to have to make a trip up there and take care of a few things.

The question was when she would make the trip. She would talk to Zander before she made any real decisions. Thinking of her cowboy made her shiver as she recalled the wonderful things they had done together the night before. He had ways of making her come as no man ever had before. Of course, she hadn't had that many lovers, because she was so afraid of turning into her mother.

Not the time to think of this, Justice thought as she shook her head. She checked the time. It had been almost two hours since she'd called Zander, and he hadn't called her back. That must mean he was busy, but she still wished he had made some sort of contact.

She opened her texting window.
Missing, one cowboy. Reward if found.
After she hit send, she waited. It wasn't long before Zander replied.

What's the reward?

Justice thought about it for a few minutes before she typed,
How about a blowjob?

This time, the response came quicker.
Be there in about twenty minutes. Be naked.

On my knees with my mouth open?
Justice's fingers shook a little as she hit send. Phone sex had crossed their repertoire of experiences in the past, but they had never used text messaging for foreplay. It was fun.

How about you bent over the bed ready to be swatted for writing such nasty thoughts.
There was a smiley face behind the words. She could imagine the smile on his face.

Do my nasty thoughts bother you?

You've given me a hard-on, and I'm afraid it's difficult to hide. You're a naughty woman, Justice. I'm bringing my belt.

Her reply was immediate.
Thank heavens! ;-) Bring that hard-on my way. If we're both lucky, I can swallow it, feel it sliding in and out of my mouth. It's been a while since I sucked your dick. You know how much I love it.

Justice, stop it.

She giggled before she typed again. This time the wait was longer, and she wondered exactly who he was with while she was teasing him.

Finally, there was a response.
Behave, right this minute.

Justice giggled again as she typed.
Never. I want you in me, Zander, my mouth and my pussy which is so wet right now I'm soaking my jeans. Come and give it to me, Zander. Now.

Oh, I'm going to give it to you all right. Be ready. You, bed, bent over, naked, my belt.
She could almost hear the barely restrained passion in his deep voice.

Oh my
, she responded.

This time there was no reply. She imagined him on his horse, working the cattle. Or maybe he was at the barn, introducing Matchstick to his new girlfriend. Either way, she still had a little more time to go through the information Miss Agatha had collected.

Justice lost herself in her work after she found a story in a statewide magazine that gave more details on the bandits. The author had obviously done more research on the five men involved, and had concluded in the end, that the loot had been buried and never been recovered. It was the first time a writer had taken a definitive stand on the outcome of the story, and it made Justice wonder if the author was right.

Unfortunately, the writer had not given any sort of idea as to where she thought the loot might be buried. She did, however, interview a man whose great-grandfather had supposedly been a jailer at the time of the events. Justice stood up and started to franticly comb the papers Miss Agatha had collected.

Nowhere in there did she see any mention of Miss Agatha contacting that man, named Abel Gunner. It was a shock to Justice that Miss Agatha had missed that information. She made a mental note to mention it to the older woman at dinnertime that evening, if she had been released from the hospital. If she hadn't, then Justice would make a trip into town and ask her about it.

Justice had just put down the magazine when her phone pinged that she had a message.

Come outside.

She took a swig of her water before she hurried up the stairs. She made a quick stop in the bathroom to check out her hair in the mirror. It was plastered to her head. There were tiny drops of sweat on her forehead and she took a moment to wipe them off.

Her phone pinged again, and she grimaced when she saw the message. I'm waiting.

Justice hurried out the front door, stopping short when she realized Zander wasn't there. She went to the right, and when she didn't see him there, hurried to the left. She wondered if she'd misunderstood the message. His truck wasn't there. Was she supposed to meet him at the big house?

But when she came to the left hand side of the porch, she stopped in her tracks. Zander was there, sitting on Bandit. His left hand rested on the saddle horn. In his right hand was a length of rope.

"I thought I told you to be naked and bent over the bed, ready to be spanked."

Justice's pussy tightened, whether at the sight of her handsome cowboy, or at his words, she wasn't sure. All she knew was she needed him. Now. "I thought it was a—"

"You thought it was a what? A suggestion? What makes you think you can disobey my orders and get away with it? I thought I was very specific about what I wanted. You, bent over the bed, naked and waiting for my belt to kiss your ass."